Overview

"After theorists around 1960 proclaimed the ""death of ideology,"" ideological divides and clashes have reemerged with renewed intensity throughout the world. In the United States they have become particularly venomous. Each side in America's escalating ideological civil war charges the other with concocting ""fake news"" and ""alternative facts."" The other side is widely viewed as malicious, irrational, or downright stupid, and, often, as barely legitimate. The zeal of the opposing sides is often scarcely less than that which characterized the religious ideologies of old. Indeed, historical religious ideologies have largely been replaced by ""secular religions"" or ""religion substitutes."" Ideology consists of normative prescriptions regarding how society should be shaped, together with an interpretive roadmap indicating how this normative vision can be implemented in reality. Ideological Fixation is the result of tensions and conflicts between these two elements. The book focuses on ideologies' factual claims about the world, typically subordinate to, and often distorted by, their normative commitment. In exploring this phenomenon, the book combines insights from evolutionary psychology regarding the nature of some of our deepest proclivities with a broad sweep through history and around the world."

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"Azar Gat is Ezer Weitzman Professor of National Security in the School of Political Science, Government, and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of nine books, including, more recently: A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War; War in Human Civilization, named one of the best books of the year by the Times Literary Supplement (TLS); Victorious and Vulnerable: Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century and How it is still Imperiled; Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism; The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace: But Will War Rebound?; and War and Strategy in the Modern World: From Blitzkrieg to Unconventional Terrorism. His books have been translated into Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Greek, Turkish, and Hebrew. He has held visiting positions at Oxford, Yale, Ohio State, Georgetown, Hoover-Stanford, Freiburg, Munich, and Constance. In 2019 he was awarded the EMET Prize in the fields of political science and strategy. Granted under the auspices of the Prime Minister's office, it is considered Israel's highest scholarly prize. Shawn K. Jain is a Harvard University/Moscow Art Theater School/A.R.T. Institute graduate. Shawn has TV credits for shows on Apple TV+, CBS, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Showtime, and Peacock, and he has narrated audiobooks for Penguin Random House, Hachette, Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, Epic!, Blackstone, GraphicAudio, and HQN. Shawn can be heard on many episodes of the romcom podcast Meet Cute and on Atypical Artists' audio dramas Life with LEO(h) and Maxine Miles. He also voiced a migrant worker for UCLA Labor Center's Re: Work Radio podcast. Sean Daniels, artistic director of Arizona Theatre Company, said he finds ""few actors funnier in the world than Shawn."" Prior to saying yes to his calling to be an actor, Shawn was a communications and marketing professional who did important work with organizations like the ACLU and the International AIDS Society. Born and raised in Northern California, Shawn received his BA from UC Berkeley. In addition to acting, Shawn has several pilots in development. Shawn writes stories that deal with the brokenness of people and society (even when things seem glittering and beautiful on the outside). Shawn is queer and of South Asian descent. A native English speaker who is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Hindi, Shawn can do British, Farsi, Hindi, Indian, Urdu, and Arabic accents."

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